Pfizers miljö- och ansvarsblogg

Social media - such a powerful tool!

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You probably already know that I am a strong fan of social media. I have discussed the power of social media, and potential uses within healthcare and other sectors, here at the blog several times before (see for instance my blog posts from Aug 24 and April 5 this year, and Nov 24 from last year).

I like to draw your attention to two very good stories about the use of social media in healthcare related issues discussed at one of my favorite CSR on-line newsletter csr-i-praktiken.se. The article in the CSR news letter is called “Social media gives a voice to cancer patients” and presents one US example and one Swedish example. Two strong cases showing the power of social media. Read it and get inspired!

And when you are on-line, take the opportunity to also review two other social media favorite cases of mine:

- Can you feel my pain

- Dizza Tobak: Check out any of these uploaded anti-tobacco contributions and get inspired!

I nevertheless feel somewhat sorry… The use of social media in the healthcare sector is still extremely pre-mature and to be honest very rare. We still have so much to learn - and that holds true for both industry, health care providers, patient advocacy groups, our agencies, and many other stakeholders…

Prevention of illnesses and creation of wellbeing

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I have discussed new concepts and ideas in the area of prevention of illnesses and creation of wellbeing here at the blog several times before. Sometimes under an umbrella of “Social Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship” and sometimes just as a natural development of the business strategies in the pharmaceutical industry (see for instance the blog post from Feb 8, 2011, Nov 16, 2011, and June 9, 2010).

A background to this development could for instance be found in a quote from a debate article by our former CEO, Jeff Kindler:

“We’ve made a series of commitments to ourselves and to the people we serve. For example, we have committed to advancing wellness, prevention, treatments and cures, because health is one of the most important investments a society can make. It’s time to move beyond simply helping people get better after they get sick. Shouldn’t we help them keep from getting sick in the first place?”

On “matured healthcare markets”, such as our market here in Sweden, I am convinced that we will see these concepts materialize over the coming years.

minhjartskola.se

And I am happy to see that at this very moment minhjartskola.se is being presented as a “best practice” initiative at the National Quality Register Conference (”Nationella Kvalitetsregisterkonferensen 2011, 4-5 oktober“) arranged by SKL (”the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions”).

It is important that these kind of initiatives become well-known and utilized in healthcare to enable and facilitate further development of not only the tools and concepts themselves, but also market and business models. Because I believe we could all agree with the basic idea that it is better to prevent than to cure. Tools such as minhjartskola.se that drives life style changes should be offered to citizens as early as possble (at least before they become a patient with an identified illness). And I really think it is reasonable to say that the social innovators and developers should get a fair reward for their contribution. Such a market model still needs to be developed!

Social innovation in the area of prevention and wellbeing is a very important and, at least according to me, a growing trend of Corporate Social Responsibility in the healthcare sector.

Green Chemistry in the Pharmaceutical Sector

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As you might have seen in the end of my blog post from yesterday, I have discussed Green Chemistry, Design for the Environment, and other issues in the field of pharmaceuticals and the environment today. And I have had those discussions on a train running from Uppsala to Gothenburg. That was a new experience for me I have to admit. Fun, but slightly unstable. I should probably have worn a helmet to secure that I did not hurt myself if I would have fallen to the floor… But it went well!

Discussing sustainability

My discussion partners were coming from a urology conference (”Urologidagarna”) in Uppsala and heading back home to Gothenburg. A pretty good thing I would say to combine the train trip with some green pharmaceutical discussions (at least in my view)!

I gave a general background to environmental issues in our sector, starting with one of my favourite slides: The Sustainable Quadrant that I have borrowed from Stina Billinger (Storebrand/SPP).

The Sustainable Quadrant

I then discussed both Access to Water issues as well as Climate Change and Energy matters before jumping into Pharmaceuticals in the Environment. We looked into both green design or Design for the Environment, i.e. how to design the active pharmaceutical ingridient to allow for low toxicity, no bio-accumulation potential, and easy degradability. I also gave example upon Green Chemistry perspectives on manufacturing operations, i.e. lowest possible use of raw materials, low toxicity of the solvents and materials used, and as small generation of waste as possible.

In the end of the presentation we discussed releases of pharmaceuticals susbstances from manufacturing facilities. Part of the discussion of course concerned Joakim Larsson’s results of releases in Hyderabad, India. In the discussion I talked about the ongoing discussions on green incentives in the pricing and reimbursement system as one tool to address those kind if issues. For more details on green incentives see the blog post from Sept 28 for instance.

It was really fun having these discussions on a shaky train to Gothenburg!

Sustainability and the Pharmaceutical Sector

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PharmaPortalen and Pharma Online arranged the seminar “Läkemedelsmarknadsdagen 2011” today, focusing sustainable development in the pharmaceutical sector. They had invited a number of speakers representing the industry as well as agencies, but also academia and journalists. A good mixture of perspectives. Jonny Sågänger, Pharma Online’s Editor, introduced the day by giving definitions of sustainability and CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility), and by spelling out the main questions for the day: What are the drivers for CSR-initiatives? Does CSR provide business opportunities and/or risk minimization? How strong are the demands from internal and external stakeholders?

Jonny Sågänger gives an introduction

First speaker was Magnus Thyberg from TLV (the Dental and Pharmaceutical Benefits Agency). TLV has been in focus for, and they have participated in, several discussions lately regarding green pharmaceuticals and green incentives, e.g. yesterday’s round-table meeting at LIF. See also my blog posts from Sept 20 regarding TLV and green incentives in the reimbursement system. As is obvious in the Sept 20-blog post, TLV does not seem to have green incentives as their top proposal for addressing potential environmental impacts from pharmaceuticals. The rather tend to promote MPA’s GMP-proposal. TLV’s objections to introducing green incentives in the pricing and reimbursement system is that the Swedish market is too small. I would rather say that it is “small or big enough to be used as a perfect case study”.

Magnus Thyberg and the pharma strategy

And Magnus gave of course also some insight into the possibilities that TLV does see of introducing green incentives. What will happen is hard to tell, but we will for sure follow Stina Wallström’s review of green incentives and the reimbursement system with great interest. Magnus gave a brief description of the work task Sofia W has in front of her.

Charlotte Unger

Charlotte Unger from MPA entered the stage after Magnus. Charlotte discussed the three main proposals from MPA’s report in Dec 2009:

- Environmental requirements in GMP (Good Manufaturing Practice)

- The ERA (Environmental Risk Assessment) as a part of the risk/benefit analysis when making decisions on market authorization

- A review of the pricing and reimbursement system to allow for green incentives

You already know my preference here. I strongly believe that green incentives is a much faster, and a more efficient way, to “greening the sector”.

Charlotte also gave brief comments to the work on pharmaceuticals and the environment in the work process of the All Party Committee on Environemntal Objectives.

Anita Finne-Grahnén from LIF (the Association of the Research Based Industry in Sweden) then gave us a short descriptions on CSR initiatives at the industry association level. She focused the LIF initiative to environmentally classifying active pharmaceutical ingridients, and publish the information on fass.se, and the very developed ethical regulations which governs all our business operations.

Anita Finne-Grahnen from LIF

I think the ethical rules are a very good example of very valuable CSR-efforts. We should as an industry be very proud of these rules. It secures that our business are conducted properly, without any “corruptive” ingridients. We should however be much better to communicate on this. I think large parts of the public still believe that business are done as incorrectly shown in the Hollywood movie “Love and other drugs”… Not strange then, that our reputation in not the best…

Christina Ruden from MistraPharma

Christina Rudén provided us with the perspective from academia. She presented results from the first phase of MistraPharma and also gave some insigths what will come during Phase 2 of MistraPharma, which has recently been granted by Mistra.

Mikael Salo, MiljöAktuellt

After a lunch break we got the opportunity to listen to Mikael Salo’s (editor MiljöAktuellt) perspectives on sustainability and the pharmaceutical sector. Mikael used the results from the Sustainable Brands 2011 investigation to elaborate on the issue. I have discussed those results before (see my blog post from March 22), but although there might be “good explanations” or “good excuses” for the extremely poor result for the pharma industry (at the bottom when it comes to the public’s rating of sustainbility performance), it definitely tells us something…

Sustainable Brands results

We are not good on communication. We need to better “tell our stories”. How should we do to spread information like the one published on pfizer.se regarding CSR and sustainability (a brief introduction, information in somewhat more detail, or detailed information on our sustainability initiatives), or the information on Pfizer’s global webpage regarding sustainability and Corporate Responsibility.

After Mikaels presentation we received two lectures on industry case studies when it comes to sustainability programs.

Zeljko Tucak and APL

First a presentation on APL given by Zeljko Tucak and then about AstraZeneca’s programs (presented by Tove Engström).

Tove Engström and AZ

Two impressive presentations and a number of good examples of industry initiatives. Listening to these examples, it becomes very clear that this industry’s sustainability reputation should be better… Then why isn’t it? I personally believe that we need to communicate more widely, more frequently, more interactively and more transparently. We need to interact with all different stakeholders, through all different types of communication channels. But we also need to decide whether or not we actually want to build our corporate brand or if we will continue to focus upon our product brands. To me there is a very important difference here to bear in mind - when we discuss product brands, we are to a large extent forbidden to communicate with the public, hence very difficult to build a reputation… Corporate brand communication - about our values and non-product related information, can be shared much more freely.

This take us to the last speaker of the day, Tomas Brytting. Tomas also represents academia (from Ersta Sköndal Högskola), and he gave a though provoking lecture on CSR, on stakeholder engagement and dialogue, and what actually drives CSR-initiatives. He was very clear that he doubted that “economic profitability” was the only reason to work with social responsibility issues such as human rights. And of course he is right. The values embedded in our corporations do play a significant role in these programs!

Tomas Brytting

The seminar ended with a panel discussion where I and some of the speakers of the day discussed and further elborated on CSR inititives, CSR drivers, and what will happen in the coming years. I think I can say that everyone agreed that CSR (both social and environmental sustainability) is a key to success, and that it will grow more and more important over the coming years. To some extent of course it is embedded in the values of the corporations, and should of course definitely be so in an industry working for a healthier world. But financial opportunities are also important. This takes me back to the issue of green incentives… I really hope to see green incentives in the reimbursement system. That would help to further develop the sustainability programs in the industry!

This was a good and interesting seminar. I should probably give you more details from the discussions, but I am rather tired now. Time to go to bed and get some sleep. There is another work-day coming up tomorrow. I’ll be on a train to Gothenburg discussing environmental sustainability with some stakeholders, but more on that later…

Pharma Business Stategies for Developing Countries

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You may have read about my thoughts on CSR-strategies for Business Development in developing countries before (see for instance my blog posts from March 29 2010, May 2 2011). In those discussions I have used the so-called Walderik-Mattson pyramid to visualize the different CSR- and business strategies needed on different markets:

The Walderik-Mattson pyramid

CSR-i-praktiken.se, one of my favourite CSR-newsletters, has published a very interesting article on GSK’s newly implemented business model for developing markets such as Kenya and Uganda. Very interesting reading, and I have been waiting for the article to be published since I knew it was scheduled to come (there is a very brief quote in the end of the article by myself…)

There are some things worth commenting: First of all of course - I really like to approach taken by GSK. They try to develop a business model that works in poor countries with huge medical needs. It is of great necessity for the suffering patients and it is of course also good for our business. There has always been a discussion whether the best chances for developing countries to grow and prosper comes from “philanthropic initiatives” or “business driven initiatives”. If you have followed my blog posts of the years you will know that I have strong beliefs in “business and market driven initiatives”. If we can find business models that work, we clearly help the societies to develop and grow, and utilizes strong and positive driving forces among the citizens. If everything is based on charity-driven solutions there is a risk that the receiving countries remain being dependent on future aid.

I also like GSK’s approach that their initiatives are a combination of pharmaceutical supply and building health care infrastructure. My opinion is that only focusing avilability of medicines would not dramatically change the situation in many poor countries around the globe. It is extremely important that a well-functioning health care infrastructure is built. Physicians and nurses must be educated, hospitals must be built, centers for treatment and capacity building needs to be constructed, and of course there is also a huge demand for clean water, different types of sanitary and hygienic articles, and health literacy.

In a school in Uganda...

Last year in October I had the opportunity to follow some of Pfizer’s initiatives in Africa closely. Please read about Pfizer’s “Global Health Program” on our global webpage. But take your time also to read by reflections “on site in Uganda” last October:

- A day at the Infectious Diseases Institute

- A day with the International Trachome Initiative

- A day with the Diflucan Partnership Program

There is so much that needs to be done, in Africa and elsewhere, to really provide patients in need with adequate health care. I am however very happy to see all different initiatives that are being, and already have been, launched. Personally I feel strongly for integrating the CSR-perspectives with the business strategies. I am convinced that it is a key if we want to see sustainable change! And if GSK’s new business model helps pave the way for other initiatives I couldn’t be happier. It would help patients in need, provide sustainable growth opportunities for developing countries, and it would be good for our business:

“Långt borta från både Nairobi och Pennsylvania, deltar svenske Bengt Mattson, CSR-chef på Pfizer, under Almedalsveckan i Visby. Han vidmakthåller att läkemedelsbolagens nuvarande portföljer generellt inte matchar behoven i många utvecklingsländer, vilket är en risk på lång sikt eftersom tillväxten finns där. Men låg betalningsförmåga och bristande infrastruktur gör att företagen tvekar. Han tycker det är upplyftande att GSK vågar satsa långsiktigt och testa en ny modell som inte är kopplad till välgörenhet.
– Vi pratar om framtida marknader och GSK:s investeringar snabbar på utvecklingen och drar upp spåren för oss andra, säger Mattsson.
Samhällseffekten, såväl som marknadens värdering, av GSK:s satsning kan bedömas först om några år. Men jakten på nya kunder måste ändå ses som en viss garant för att läkemedelsbranschen kommer att hitta nya vägar att nå ut till fler patienter, oavsett inkomst och födelseland.”

(The final paragraph in CSR-i-praktikens article, including a quote from myself)